Eden, Burning
by A. Murray
Summary: Dean tilts his head to look at it, to wonder at it. It is his first soul after all.


_Title:_ Eden, Burning

_Disclaimer:_ I do not own anything. If I did, S6 would be… well, better. :/

_Summary:_ Dean's first soul in hell.

_Characters:_ Dean Winchester

_Notes:_ Supremely dark and fairly horrible. **You have been warned.** Contains shameless exploitation of Dean's time in Hell and his torturous tendencies. Yet it isn't without purpose, I think? At any rate, I hope it satisfies in some way and does not stray too far from a canonical sort of hell!Dean… if there is, in fact, any canon to be followed in this scenario. Spoken words in _italics_. Comment if you feel the urge; I love opinions.

_Word Count:_ 810

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><p>A soul is slung upon the rack and chained. It whimpers. Dean tilts his head to look at it, to wonder at it. It's his first soul after all. He feels he should feel more but there is a nothingness stretched out inside him, as vast as a canyon; as vast as this plain of fire and death and eternity.<p>

A part of him thinks he should know this soul. He dredges the still waters of his memory. Long-disconnected and utterly frayed, his human mind is churned uselessly for no name surfaces. Chunks of darkness and muted pain swirl aimlessly and settle again, the reason for the disturbance quickly forgotten.

There's a blade in his hand and a grinning mouth just over his shoulder, speaking softly into his ear. A barely contained desire to please is blossoming in his heart; a blackness within himself urging him on, violently wishing to be freed into the darkness that surrounds him.

He used to fear that darkness. He vaguely recalls the way it would press against him so hard and so close it seemed about to swallow him whole; about to gnash upon him with teeth so sharp and glistening. He used to be unable to breath or think or know and soon he all but forgot why he had to hold out against it, only that he had to. _Just hold on_, he would tell himself. A meaningless mantra:_ hold on, hold on, hold on…_ Until came the day when he simply let go. The darkness doesn't frighten him anymore.

The hand that holds the blade moves just once and the cry that follows makes him shudder. A deep hum of sweet release crests within in him, drowning him with emotions liken to that which came to him in the passionate embraces he sought and enjoyed once and long ago. This new sort of pleasure takes him over, guiding his next movement, and the one after. The screams of his subject blend into each other and become a sort of melody; a terrible sweet song of the damned.

The voice at this ear encourages him onward, directing him; the teacher and his pupil: _Small cuts, Dean… There you go. Just flick your wrist, that's it… Shallow nicks. Make it last. Not too deep… There's my boy…_

Dean is carving a masterpiece. Anger and fear and revenge leak out of him like sweat from pores. There's a mindless freedom to his act and a strange peace that fills him because of it. In this place, he isn't Dean Winchester. He's someone else. He's become something else.

When he is done, he is spent. Exhaustion cloaks him, weighing him down. But he's nervous, anxious. Has he done well?

His master snakes around him, moving without walking, slithering from one inspection glance to another. On a face that only Dean can see a grin begins to widen.

_It is good, my boy_, his tutor tells him in a voice that reaches out to stroke his face. Dean fills with pride. The teeth of his knife drip with carnage.

Alastair slips away into the darkness. The soul is left hanging and Dean watches as it dangles in the air, carved and quivering and silent. It is not dead; it can never die. He watches it, his first soul, and wonders when it will be returned again, whole once more, ready to sharpen the tip of his blades.

He is watching as it looks to him with empty socket eyes and whispers his name.

_Dean._

There is a flash of remembrance and Dean falls to his knees, the knife clattering away into the darkness. A pain bends him over, a horrid pain, as though something tender and precious is tearing from him, burning out of him. He clutches a fist to his chest as a moan struggles forward from dead lungs.

_Dean_, the soul begs. _Please…_

But it's too late. The memory -the morality, the humanity- fades out of him more quickly than the bright bursts in which it came. He's straightening, rising up again, the pain ebbing out like the dying embers of a fire. The last of Dean Winchester has already been stripped away, peeled off and discarded the moment he took up the blade. He's forgotten already what it felt like to be anywhere but here, this place of suffering. This place of forever.

He's forgotten all but that which came with the soul's voice: a name.

The soul hangs before him, trembling in the smoke and rot. Its shape is cut to pieces, nearly unrecognizable. Yet he's remembered the lines that once were, the figure of someone he once knew. The tip of a smile, the curve of waist and thigh, the purr of poison from lovely lips…

_Bela. _He greets her, his voice void of all malice or dishonesty. _You look good._

_fin_

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><p><em>last note:<em> yes, Bela. Not very original I guess, but I think it's sort of a strange, fitting twist to put on the tale. Anyway, who's to say something like this didn't happen? Alastair seems to me to be the sort to make Dean's first torture someone he knew... Or maybe that's just me.


End file.
